


Survivor's Debt

by V_M_nanowriter



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Dinner, Equalists - Freeform, F/M, PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shell Shock, Shipping, Speculation for episode six, Spirit Bending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 03:54:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_M_nanowriter/pseuds/V_M_nanowriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You saved my life."<br/>"I saved your bending."<br/>"Do you know me? My bending is my life."<br/>At the Pro Bending Championship, Amon tries to take away Tahno's bending. After that night, Tahno has to move on, whether he wants to or not. That means flirting with his savior and trying to ignore his PTSD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Image was important to Tahno. Image was crucial. Image in many cases is more important than substance. Because of the importance of image, he was carrying flowers to the Avatar on Air Temple Island.

Or at least that’s what he kept telling himself when dark thoughts came to mind and he felt the hackles on the back of his neck rising.

He’d wanted blue flowers, blue roses if possible, though he couldn’t remember ever seeing blue roses at any of the florists he frequented. The pretty florist girl—Koko he thought her name was, wore a couple old fashioned geisha hair ornaments—had smiled apologetically as she showed him the bluest of their purple flowers, and apologized for the lack of blue flowers. Then a bushel of pale flowers among the roses caught his attention—not quite white, but a very light green. He inquired about them, and the price—second most expensive type of flower in the shop—was what decided it. One to carry with himself, three to be sent to Kuang’s around five o’clock. He tipped well. Tahno always tipped a pretty face well.

The rose would keep well in the special pocket inside his jacket, but Tahno didn’t feel like wasting time or interacting with the masses on the ferries. It took about ten minutes by taxi to get to the dockyard, and Tahno tossed the ten Yuan bill in the driver’s window as he walked away, listening with a smile to the old man’s grumbling. After all, image was important.

He walked directly off the end of the dock to his own ice floe, formed in the shape of a boat’s bottom for easiest navigation. He relished the sound of angry sailors’ shouts as he darted with a condescending wave in between the ships in the crowded dock. With his other hand he was careful to keep a single droplet of filthy dock water from touching his expensive suit.

He arrived on the west shore of the island, where the water was cleanest, and stepped onto the stone temple walkway without setting foot on the beach. Water he could at least control—he couldn’t do a thing about a bunch of grit clinging to the hem of his 55% silk pants.

He grinned as he finally reached the top of the scenic staircase and saw the Avatar alone in the courtyard, lying on her back on a bench with a newspaper over her face.

A flash, all his muscles tensed, and his senses screamed at him _Don’t think about the headlines_. He took a breath, shrugged his shoulders and limbered his limbs to swagger over to the Avatar.

“Avatar Korra,” he said in a cordial drawl. “Enjoying the weather?”

He saw her muscles tense the instant before he spoke—good reflexes—and she was on her feet before he’d finished with her title. She landed in what looked like a halfway stance—firebender’s arms, earthbender’s legs, waterbender’s flexible core.

“Tahno. What do you want?” She sounded wary, not suspicious. That was good.

Tahno shrugged again, shoving his hands in his pockets as he gave her an indirect view of his smile—girls loved the crooked smiled. “Come on, now—Championship’s been called off, haven’t you heard? Not like we’re _enemies_ anymore.”

Neither of them said the sentence that was hanging in the air: _With Amon on the loose, not like any of us are enemies anymore._ She stood up straight, as if to shake off the thought.

“Korra,” he said, pulling out the green rose and walking towards her. “You saved my life.” He offered it to her, just the right mix of honesty and pretty-boy veneer on his face.

“I saved your bending,” she corrected immediately, turning away and grabbing the paper to leave.

“Hey, would you look at me? Bending _is_ my life,” he said, gesturing with the rose as he followed her. “Come on. You need a night on the town, to relax.”

Korra turned around, met his eyes, every muscle a ball of controlled tension. “Sorry to tell you this, but a night on the town is the opposite of relaxing.”

Tahno gave her Smile No. 5 “That’s because you haven’t had a night on the town with _Tahno_.”

“Not interested,” she said, spinning around and marching off.

“Come on, Avatar. I can wait all night, and I think I heard something once about airbenders not turning away hungry guests and I can make it all night at least. But then, the reservations at Kuang’s is for eight, so it’d probably be better to head out before those go to waste.”

She continued to march, ignoring him with visible tautness to the muscles in her neck.

“I mean, it doesn’t _have_  to be Kuang’s,” he continues. “Not everybody can get a last-minute reservation at Kuang’s, so you could be making some poor lucky sap’s night by wanting to go someplace else. How about that Water Tribe noodle dive I met you in?”

For about the first five minutes, it was cute that she was ignoring him with him trailing behind, talking about dinner, flirting just enough to be Tahno of the Wolfbats. And then it got annoying that he had to keep coming up with words as the most talkative Avatar in memory clammed up at him. And then it got infuriating that he’d come all this way to offer a girl a flower and a dinner date with Tahno of the Woldbats. And then for a few seconds he went back down the train of thought for the debt he owed her, and for a few seconds he was beginning to feel the symptoms of what the healers told him was called “shell shock” when he’d been on the healing cot, curled as tight as he could, unable to shut his eyes or keep from whimpering. (Thank the spirits no press or competition had been there.)

And right then, as a dark place was calling, his perfectly groomed hair went flying in five directions in four seconds, and there were shrill, excited bratlings hanging on Korra asking dozens of questions about him and her teammates and every form of emphasis possible laid on the word “like.” He straightened his hair.

Dinner at the Air temple was definitely out.

He discerned one question the smaller of the bratlings asked, and responded with a shrug, waving the rose as he answered “Hey, she just saved my life the other night, and I figured I owed my new friend a dinner, no big deal.”

“Yeah, but what about the _rose_?” she fired off with a faint lisp.

“Girls like roses,” he said, kneeling down and handing it to the bratling. Twenty two yuans and change, down the drain. “I figured it might ease the way. Is it working?” Angle the face, cue crooked smile, and then feeling dirty for using the moves on a freaking _kid_.

She accepted the rose, and inspected it with what looked like real taste the texture, color, and smell of the flower before looking up to examine his face.

“Why are you wearing _eye makeup_? Isn’t that for _ladies_?”

_All right you little brat, let’s see how far I can throw your little airbending ass with the water from that planter…_

“All right!” Korra shouted to some question from the bigger of the bratlings. “I am going to dinner with him— _not a date_ , and _not_ because I like him, or don’t like him, or anything, but because people can be friends, and people who are friends can go out and do things like that and it doesn’t mean that there’s anything, it’s just that people sometimes go out for some noodles when you’ve saved someone’s life or their bending or whatever, okay?”

“ _Ri-ight_ …” the bigger one said, before airbending herself away, the other one quick to follow, leaving a few rose petals behind.

“Shall we?” Tahno asked, dramatically offering his arm. Instead, Korra lifted her fingers to her mouth, gave an ear-piercing whistle, and her monster bounded over with an eager _rauwarf._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner, Flowers, and PTSD

He’d wanted to get the back room of the Water Tribe noodle shop like he always did, but Korra had been adamant about getting a normal booth. Maybe it’s that she didn’t realize what crossing her arms did to her very mature bust, or what her glare did to those bright blue eyes, but Tahno didn’t argue.

“I don’t mind being seen in public with you,” he drawled with a grin and sauntered over to the central table. She stayed planted where she was, firm earthbender stance to her feet. Tahno made a sweeping motion to the booth with his arm and gave a condescending bow. “My lady?”

She grumbled as she marched over to the booth and plopped down into a slouch as he slid into the booth opposite.

“Get whatever you like. I can afford a dive like this,” Tahno said. The old man who ran the shop floated over to take their orders.

“A bottle of yak-bear wine, a basket of hard rolls and dipping milk, some lard crisps, and the house special noodles with a plate of fish on the side. And a glass of iced water,” Korra added, folding her hands in front of her.

“…Ginger-orange tea and the house special noodles,” Tahno said, and the old man floated away. “What the hell is yak-bear wine?”

“It’s fermented milk from a nursing yak-bear. They should have been delivering their cubs in the Northern Water Tribe about a month ago, and any real Water Tribe place knows to carry the stuff once it’s been fermented for a full moon cycle,” Korra said, and there was something happy in her face talking about home or her culture or whatever. “We have a saying in the Southern Water Tribe: ‘You can always tell and outsider because he can’t hold his milk.’ But, you’re a waterbender, so I’m sure you can handle it.”

“I’m pretty sure I can handle whatever you throw my way, Avatar,” Tahno answered with a grin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

“I thought it was bad manners to leave a lady alone when you’re out with her?” Korra asked with equal parts sarcasm and feminine demureness.

“Manners?” Tahno scoffed over his shoulder, still grinning. Once he was out of the noodle shop, he stopped grinning. High-maintenance girl from a loser team putting up a fight before going out with him, costing him money, and then not even having the decency to fall for him? He looked forward to that night being over.

Outside the noodle shop, he walked over to a kiosk in an alley where a tall young man in an orange courier’s jacket stood.

“I’m Tahno. Of the Wolf-Bats,” Tahno said. He always preferred that to giving his last name. “I’ve got a bit of a dilemma, you see. There’s a flowership in the East Side where I bought some flowers for the girl I’m with over in that noodle shop there. But, I arranged to have the flowers sent to Kuang’s Cuisine, but she didn’t want to go to Kuang’s Cuisine, so we’re here. Problem is, I need those flowers, and I can’t remember just when I told them to send the flowers over to Kuang’s. So, here’s your-up front fee, and good luck on getting me those flowers within the next forty-five minutes if you want the rest of your pay. We’re just in a booth in there.” Tahno clapped the courier on the shoulder as he slipped the ten yuan bill into the courier payment box, and spun around with his hands in his pockets to walk back to the noodle shop.

He heard the courier running off in the direction of the East Side, and Tahno chuckled that he hadn’t given the courier any details to find which florist he’d visited. He heard the courier curse and run in the opposite direction toward Kuangs, and Tahno chuckled a little more that he’d left without giving the boy an authenticating signature, the color or type or number of flowers, or the shop’s name to identify them.

“Damn sometimes it just feels good to be a bastard,” he said to himself before reentering the noodle shop.

Korra was already at work when he got back to the table. There seemed to be more dishes on the table than he remembered her ordering.

“Hey. As soon as you left, I remembered that this place had some great salted lion-seal udon and swordfish-grouper steaks. Then the old man asked if I wanted them breaded or grilled and I said ‘both’ since you’re so keen on showing your money and all,” Korra said. She’d already eaten half of the lard crisps, half emptied the glass of water, taken at least one roll, and was de-boning her fish faster than anyone he’d ever seen before. “And the cook apologizes, but they’re out of your fruity-flavored tea. I ordered you some green tea instead.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” he replied with sweet sarcasm as he chanted the word adapt over and over again in his head. 

“Oh, I know,” Korra replied.

Why the hell am I doing this again? Tahno asked himself in earnest as he carefully masked his face to swallow his hot leaf juice devoid of any decent flavor. Maybe she’d just been distracting him really well, because at that moment the memory of the chi-blockers, the bombs, and Amon’s hand coming down on his face hit him blindside.

Her voice came in like a reverse-echo. “…no…Tahno…Tahno…Tahno!”

“What?” he snapped, automatically bringing his leg up to kick the attacker off, forgetting the table until a fierce pain in his knee reminded him it existed and was heavy.

“Just shut up for a minute, okay?” she said, and was over on his side of the booth, the remainder of her iced water glowing around her hands. He was still tense as a coiled spring, but allowed her to turn his head to face her and place her glowing hands on either side of his face.

He’d been healed before, but usually only because he was hurt first. (Once or twice had been completely recreational, but then he’d been pretty sure there were scratch marks all over his back anyway.) He’d never had a healer’s hands on him like this, and… it was nice. He could at least feel his muscles starting to relax from their rigor as she worked.

She’d come over to his side of the booth, and had one foot on the floor, kneeling on the bench with her opposite leg as she leaned over him with her palms on his temples.

Tahno had good instincts, and his instincts said that when he heard someone entering the noodle shop, he should put a hand on Korra’s waist.

When the people walked closer, in quick succession he heard a familiar voice say “Korra?” and then immediately “Korra?”  
He had another decision then: move the hand higher or lower, which wasn’t really a question at all. Lower if they were alone, higher for a couple of loser teammates catching their girl fraternizing with the enemy. 

She had been pulling her hands away from his face, turning around to greet her teammates when she felt Tahno’s hand moving and jerked violently out of the booth, and Tahno could have sworn he felt a gust as she did so.

She looked back and forth from the grinning Tahno to Bolin and Mako, and babbled things along the lines of “he wasn’t,” “I wasn’t,” and “it’s not what it looks like” for a good twelve seconds before the spirits smiled on Tahno and a winded courier made his way in and unwrapped a bouquet of delicate green roses.

“Sir…” The courier said, brandishing the roses at Tahno. “That will be… ten yuans… plus expenses…” he gasped.  
Tahno reached into his internal money pocket (which was getting lighter than he ever liked to allow it) and handed the boy the first bill he touched, a twenty-five yuan note.

“Keep the change, buy yourself something nice,” he said. “And I don’t know how familiar you are with the way these things work, but the flowers go to the lady. Keep at it, maybe someday you’ll get it right.”

The courier shoved the roses into Korra’s hands and stomped out of the restaurant, Bolin following him at speed.

“Bolin, wait, no!” Korra yelled, dropping the flowers and running after him.

Tahno continued to grin, putting his arms behind his head and stretching out his legs on the bench of the booth. The look of anger on Mako’s face was just hilarious as he mumbled something about playing a game.

“What’s the matter, Captain Loser? Little bro can’t take a little competition?”

Mako turned his glare on Tahno, who lithely reached for his cup of tea to take a self-assured swig.

“Whatever Korra is or… does, there’s no way I'm going to believe she was actually hear on a date with you, scumbag.”

“Oh, scumbag? That’s real cute coming the little street urchin,” Tahno said, smiling against the taste of green tea in his mouth.

“What was she doing over you like that?” Mako asked.

Tahno shrugged. “Girl couldn’t keep her hands off me. She insisted.”

Mako seemed to be reading it as half lie and half truth, but he appeared to be having trouble telling which half was which. Then, there was a shift in his posture. “You almost didn’t escape Amon that night. I was just as close to him as you were. It could’ve been me.”

Maybe it was that shell-shock flashback he’d just had, but Tahno didn’t feel any of his symptoms cropping up. “Well, are you the captain and star player of a three-year championship bending team? No, no you’re not one of the most famous and flawless benders in this city. It’s obvious why Amon wants me—everybody wants me.” He let the sentence hang, giving Mako his slimiest grin.

“Hey, you’ve got—” Mako started, pointing to Tahno and stepping forward. The position was close enough to remind Tahno of Amon, bearing down on him with a hand ready to take away everything in his life that mattered to him. He managed not to scream, manages not to try to escape, but every nerve snapped into attention, he could smell the smoke and rock dust in the air, hear the screams of his teammates and the crowds. “—some water on your shirt. Was Korra healing you?”

Tahno couldn’t make himself talk, he couldn’t risk opening his mouth without the danger that he would scream.

“Hey, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Tahno snapped, turning to face the table.

There was a moment when Tahno sat there with his fingers tented in front of his face and Mako stood with his arms crossed, and then Korra and Bolin walked back in, looking at least like friends.

“I don’t know what he’s been telling you, but like I was telling Bolin, Tahno just showed up on Air Temple Island and wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to get dinner with him, as friends, since the championship is over and we can all be friends now,” Korra said.

“Right, and since I already paid for dinner, why don’t we go ahead and finish Avatar while we let your teammates get their own dinner?”

“Wait, what? No,” Korra said, surprise on her face. “No way, I ordered way too much for just me to eat. You guys sit in with us—dinner’s on Tahno.”

Maybe, Tahno wondered to himself, somewhere, in some life, there is a version of her who was not born to annoy the hell out of me.

But he gave her his charming grin as he motioned to the seat next to him. “Well, since you walked in with me, care to make room for your friends on that side of the table?”

“Nope,” both of the brothers said at once, Mako sliding into the seat next to Tahno and Bolin joining Korra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, turns out I’ll have to go into three chapters to finish. There will be an independent oneshot for the Borra conversation outside the noodle shop. Coming the next chapter, something remotely resembling Tahorra. And I need to hurry, because 11AM tomorrow has the ability to shatter my headcanon forever. 
> 
> PS: It's funny that he thought "Maybe... in some life there is a version of her who was not born to annoy the hell out of me" because she's the Avatar. Gosh, I'm so clever.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, it bears saying that I had never intended for this to go on. I hadn’t even intended for a third chapter, but Chapter 2 just ran too long to finish thing there. This wasn’t meant to be a story, it was meant to be speculation.  
> …But then Episode 6 happened, and for whatever reason, people wanted more. My thoughts on the reaction will be at the end, but since people just kept alerting on it and so on I thought perhaps there was something in this to continue after all. So, a slight shift from a speculation piece to an AU piece.

Tahno woke up in a cold sweat. That had been happening a lot recently.

He stared out blearily into the shade of his room and instantly thought there was an intruder because his door was open. He ripped off the sweat-soaked sheets and landed in a crouch on the side of his bed, took one breath, and put out his arm to call some water from one of the urns placed in the four corners of his room.

Nothing happened.

Hesat there on the balls of his feet, pulling at the water with whatever wasn’t already devoted to his frenzied mind’s efforts to remember what was going on.

Flashes came to him. Fireworks around the arena, tossing off a wolfbat mask… Going toe to toe with the Avatar, getting revenge… Explosions, Amon…

…Amon…

He uttered a strangled, animal noise and threw himself to his feet, hurtling out the open door to his bedroom into the well-lit bathroom opposite and lost his stomach in the toilet. The fear and taste of vomit in his mouth caused him to heave again and again, and there was nothing left in him when he collapsed against the cold porcelain of the bath tub in a freezing sweat.

Amon. Amon had taken everything.

He raised his head and brought it down against the bathtub, once, twice, three times, and continuing until he lost count and the dull, hard throbbing made him forget how cold his skin was. His hair was lank and wet over his face, and when he raised his hand to to scrape his hair off his face he felt ice.

_Ice… might as well be ice… icy, cold, and dead…_

His thought was interrupted when a broken sheet of ice fell over his right eye, thinner than a dragonfly’s wing, and evaporated immediately.

_Ice?_

He bolted to his feet and to the mirror, and watched the icy shell of sweat on his face fall and melt as he looked in the mirror, elation feeling just like fear in his chest.

He turned on the tap, watched the water flow, and raised his trembling hand to siphon off a stream. The water resisted, but came in a weak stream he brought to his face to clean the salt from his eyelids and cheeks.

He stared at his eyes, which looked so much smaller without the eyeliner and with his pupils so constricted, and then lowered himself onto the floor to remember what he could.

His door. His door… For the first time since childhood, and not even in childhood when he’d demanded to sleep in the dark, he’d wanted light as he slept so the doors to his room and the bathroom were left open, the bathroom light left on. No intruder, this time.

His bending…

Avatar Korra. When Amon was on him, chi-blockers holding his teammates, she’d struck them  all off the stage, hitting so hard he couldn’t tell if it was earthbending or waterbending getting him. Then fear had taken over. They hit the water. Chi-blockers everywhere, fear took over, and he’d pulled his teammates under the surface and made an air pocket for them in the deepest part of the trench. He didn’t know how long they were like that, his arms mindlessly moving to maintain their shelter as exhaustion and fear shut his mind down.

Later, after he’d blacked out—had some metalbenders dropped into their sanctuary and taken them away? Or were those chi-blockers and another nightmare he’d escaped by no merit of his own?

Either way, he was among the cots, surrounded by healers, the image of Amon’s thumb on his forehead seared into his brain. Healers talking about “shell shock” and the impact of “psychological trauma” and dozens of terms he didn’t care about because _these people didn’t seem to understand that Amon had had his hand on Tahno to take away his bending._ And then the healer, a dark woman with black hair, blue eyes, and a square face, telling him that if he didn’t handle this, the trauma in his mind could block his own chi and made it difficult for him to bend.

And Korra’s words from the other night came into his mind, and Tahno leaned back against the pedestal of the sink.

_“Are you doing all right? …I mean, after I first saw Amon… I thought I could just ignore it too... I couldn’t.”_

“Well…” he muttered “I guess I’ll have to take her up on that offer…”

And then he for some reason remembered their first meeting, faces inches apart, that ironclad dare in her eyes as he offered her some _private lessons_ …

“…And maybe she’ll take me up on mine.”

He turned on the shower tap as hot as he could take it, stripped and stepped in to get rid of the last of the salt and fear clinging to his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: All right, so my reaction to Episode 6 kind of came out in a review reply. Unfortunately, the review that spurred it was an anon review so I couldn’t reply. When I did get a review to the effect of “how could they do that to Tahno/his fandom,” I said in no uncertain terms how I felt about it. But it strikes me as unfair to unleash that all on one person. So, here is a summary of my feelings regarding allowing Amon to take the Wolfbats’ bending:
> 
> [Begin quote]  
> Okay, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but what you’ve said struck a real nerve with me and it’s been a long time since I decided to stop hiding what I really thought just for the sake of politeness.  
> Think about what Mike DiMartino and Bryan Knietzko have done. They planned, licensed, and oversaw one of the best children’s shows of all time. The created a rich world filled with complex and interesting characters. They worked through three seasons with one of the most talented production teams Nick Network has ever had the privilege to employ. And then they got a sequel series, they knew the bar was high, and they lived up to it. By having Amon take away the Wolfbats bending after the championship, they made some brilliant writing decisions, more brilliant than having the Wolfbats cheat in the tournament. But no one is complaining about the Wolfbats cheating or referee’s corruption. Why? Because it was in-character for the Wolfbats to cheat. Oh, wait, it was in-character for Amon to pull off a plan to incapacitate the security and take the Wolfbats’ bending. But people will complain about that because it’s inconvenient. It’s inconvenient to have a truly villainous villain. It’s inconvenient that a favorite character can be hurt by the antagonist.  
> I have too much respect for the creative integrity of this production team to put up with people complaining about Bryke’s decisions messing with their OTPs. My qualifications on that are the fact that I still love fanon Zutara and as a writer I have three years NaNoWriMo under my belt. There are bigger, more important things than coddling characters—things like writing a daring, dangerous plotline. And from experience in criticism I say this: a “safe” plot is often a stupid plot, a useless plot, or a boring plot. Bryke used this episode and Amon’s robbing the Wolfbats of their bending to up the ante, and I frakking love them for it.  
> And I made it all the way to the end without profanity, lookit me. I should give myself a cookie.  
> PS: Bryke does not owe you or your ship anything. Bryke does, however, owe fame, critical notoriety, and I assume money to the integrity of their writing. This should be a primary consideration before seriously thinking “How could they do this to [me/us]”  
> I honestly don’t mean to be harsh, but please do not ever tell me that my candy-coated hopes are better than the story the creators put together. (And I do apologize for some of the sarcasm in that response.)  
> [End quote]
> 
> I do intend to continue this as a character piece and to speak to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as best I can, but please understand that I do prefer the choices that were made regarding the series proper.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: And next time, noodle shop! And I hope to God that the creators don't take away Tahno's bending. All of my tears that aren't already reserved for Bolin.


End file.
